Culinary Arts Grad
Is Now Feeding RUHS
By Sandy Cooch

Abner Olmstead, who graduated from the culinary arts program at what was then the Randolph Area Vocational center, is now in charge of all food services at the high school-and getting good reviews as well. (Herald / Tim Calabro)

Nine years after graduating from RUHS and from the culinary arts program at Randolph Technical Career Center, Abner Olmstead is once again walking into his old school building on a daily basis.

Only now Chef Abner Olmstead is Randolph Union High School’s food services director, and at 27, he’s quite possibly the youngest in the state.

And, after seven years of preparing upscale eats in the Woodstock Inn kitchen, Olmstead is committed to busting the stereotypes kids have about school cafeteria food.

Too often in commercial kitchens, he said in a recent interview in his small office just off the RUHS kitchen, the goal is "putting out food."

"I don’t want that here," Olmstead said. "We put out food so kids can have the best food possible."

"I train the staff to serve food they would want to eat at home, instead of just what the recipe says," he added.

Olmstead is also keeping watch on nutritional values, and working to limit the fat and sugar in kids’ diets.

His creative approach to cooking and the additions he has made to lunchroom options—including expanding the "main meal" offering to five days a week instead of two—have met with enthusiastic response from the students.

Student representatives on the RUHS board have given good reports to board members, and the suggestion box that Olmstead put in the cafeteria collects mostly praise: "Best service ever," and "Good job—I love your food!" are two recent ones.

"I take complaints very seriously and handle them quickly as possible," he added.

But the truth is, there haven’t been many criticisms.

"The worst so far is, ‘No chicken wraps,’" he said.

"Main meal" menus are now posted on the school website, www.ruhs.k12.vt.us. November’s menu included not a single repeater, and entrees ranged from chicken alfredo with steamed broccoli, to pork sloppy joes with onion rings.

With recent reports about the health risks of saturated and "trans" fats, Olmstead is limiting French fries and onion rings to occasional appearances on the "main meal" menus. Desserts such as brownies or cake are rare, as well; most meals come with a "fruit choice" instead of a baked sweet.

Students who don’t want the hot lunch special may browse the other daily options: a salad bar, a deli bar, or the hot sandwich station.

Olmstead is quick to credit his staff as his full partners in the food service’s success: "I have six employees and they are all exceptional."

The crew includes head cook Janet Spinos, and assistant cooks Lisa Wright, Debbie Buffa, Annette Magnant, Rebecca Porter, and Michael O’Brien.

They do the preps, cooking, and cleanup, while Olmstead does everything from planning menus, ordering foodstuffs and supplies, budgeting (the food service budget ended in the black last year), and making sure his kitchen is in full compliance with state and federal regulations.

"Running a kitchen is problem solving," he said. "It is a challenge I am really loving.

Having a culinary arts program just down the hall in the Randolph Technical Career Center, Olmstead commented, is a big bonus.

Chef Jerry Sullivan, head of the program, and Olmstead regularly confer and exchange ideas, and culinary arts students do some of the food preparations for the RUHS kitchen.

Olmstead also has a school-kitchen resource in the family, as his mother, Ann Olmstead, is head of food services at Chelsea Public School.

Although he enjoys the challenges of managing a kitchen, Chef Olmstead admits to missing cooking.

He started at the Woodstock Inn one year after graduating from high school, and rose through the ranks to be "chef garde manger," or head of the "cold kitchen" at the top-ranked inn and restaurant. The "garde manger" post includes responsibility for preparation of buffet foods, salads and dressings, and the like.

Olmstead, who has an associate’s degree in art, perfected his skills in another cold art: ice carving, something he hopes to continue to do this year.

Quantity cooking, he claims, is no different from home kitchen cooking.

"Actually, the hard thing for me is to cook small quantities," he said.

However, home cooking—for his two young children—is the kind of cooking Olmstead is doing these days.

It was in order to spend more time with his kids that Olmstead left the Woodstock Inn last summer to take a position as head cook at RUHS. When the RUHS food services director left last October, Olmstead stepped into the post.

At the end of the morning interview, Olmstead walked into the gleaming and steaming RUHS kitchen, where his staff was hard at work prepping the day’s offerings.

He stopped to chat with a few staffers, and then re-emphasized a point he had made earlier: "Without the great staff I have, it would not be possible to do this."

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